It will be ‘big and punchy': Athletics chief Sebastian Coe looks to future

Straits Times

9 hours ago

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has said that 2026 is "unashamedly aimed at TV". PHOTO: REUTERS
It will be 'big and punchy': Athletics chief Sebastian Coe looks to future
PARIS – Sebastian Coe has two years left as World Athletics president and it promises to be lively as he says next year's inaugural Ultimate Team Championship will remind the world the sport is 'big and punchy and still there'.
The 68-year-old Englishman has shrugged off the disappointment of finishing third in the International Olympic Committee presidential election in March, telling AFP he is 'not one for rear view mirrors'.
'Concede and move on,' he adds.
Move on he certainly has.
The old brio, dynamism and charm are all to the fore as he addresses the issues that will dominate the final leg of a 12-year tenure that – like his Olympic gold medal-winning track career – has never been dull.
The World Championships arrive in September in Tokyo – 'a massive moment', Coe says, not least because there will be spectators unlike at the Covid-delayed 2020 Summer Olympics in the same stadium.
'Everybody gets the emotional impact of that,' he added.
Then attention switches to the Ultimate Team Championship, slated for Sept 11-13, 2026, in Budapest – the city which hosted the 2023 world championships.
Each session will last three hours and athletes will represent both themselves and their national teams, wearing national kit.
'Next year is unashamedly aimed at TV,' Coe told AFP in an interview following last week's Paris Diamond League meet.
'It's unashamedly aimed at unlocking new audiences.
'So we go from '24 where we have a big global audience in the Olympic Games to '25 which are world championships. 2026 now gives us, in September, an opportunity for the world to remember we're big and punchy and still there.'
Another former track great, Michael Johnson, had wanted to make just such an impact with his Grand Slam series this year.
However, it failed to sparkle and the fourth and final stop in Los Angeles was cancelled.
Coe says just as World Athletics learn from their events, so will Grand Slam.
'We want to be enablers. I'm not the 'computer says no' federation,' said Coe.
'We want to encourage fresh thinking and fresh income into this sport. I've been involved in startups, it's complicated. But execution is everything.'
Coe says those who suffer from any fallout are the athletes, who he has striven to enrich as much as possible.
To that end the Ultimate Team Championship will boast a record-setting prize pot of US$10 million (S$13 million) – 'everybody will pick up something'.
World Athletics' decision to sanction awarding prize money to Olympic gold medallists in Paris last year did not win Coe many friends in the IOC hierarchy or among the federation chiefs of other sports.
However, he remains undeterred.
'Prize money and improving the lot of the athletes in the next few years is really, really important,' said Coe.
'Although prize money wasn't flavour of the month in Lausanne (where the IOC is based), we are going to drive ahead on that.'
Coe says he has always battled for athletes' financial well-being.
He and former IOC president Thomas Bach – who handed over power to Kirsty Coventry on June 23 – co-wrote a speech he delivered to the 1981 IOC Congress raising the topic.
Coe says the idea for the Paris prize money came to him on a long-haul flight to New York in February 2024, and he rang Abby Hoffmann, a WA Council member, from a book shop asking her opinion about his 'crazy idea'.
'She replied I think you should take more long-haul flights, and that was how it came about.'
Coe says it is only fair when one considers the wealth of the IOC.
'They're competing in a movement that has billions of dollars,' said Coe.
'It's a bit like Taylor Swift being the only person not being paid at the concert, but the volunteers and the janitors and the concessions and everybody else is doing OK out of it.'
Coe and WA's decision to impose a blanket ban on Russian athletes over the invasion of Ukraine was another area where he and Bach disagreed.
That ban remains in place, although Coe concedes if a peace agreement is reached then it is not for sport to stand in the way of the Russians' return.
The conflict, though, has left its mark on Coe after a visit he paid to Ukraine.
'When you get to Kyiv (train station), there's probably 50 or 60 ambulances and hearses waiting on the platform.
'Families waiting for the news. They have two carriages, mobile operating theatres and intensive care units, where amputations are taking place as the train's coming back.
'So, sorry, it's not something I could ever really be neutral about.' AFP
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